Wes asked > 1. According to several sources (that I've read), human > mother's milk contains just 5% of its calories as protein. > A human infant grows and develops rapidly aided by this > small amount of protein. As adults, would it be safe to > assume that we need no more than 5% of our daily calories > as protein, and possibly even less (since we're not > rapidly growing anymore)? What I've read is that babies can get away with such a low amount because a) they're getting perfectly tailored proteins, and b) they have such porous guts that they absorb and can use nearly 100% of what they ingest in the form of mother's milk. Adults are in a very different boat. As you said, breast milk is a raw food; the cooked proteins most adults eat can be damaged, so perhaps more is needed to compensate. Also, adults have a less porous gut than babies have. So maybe some folks do better with higher protein diets because they are actually absorbing and benefiting from only a small percentage of what they ingest. > 2. A baby's natural diet (mother's milk) is raw. Would > it be safe to assume that if a baby doesn't need to eat > cooked food in order to thrive, then neither should we, > as adults? Although I am in favor of raw foodism myself, I don't think that this argument is very sound. The baby/milk relationship is so special, so tailor-made, that to compare it to any adult/food relationship is unwise, in my opinion. Similar reasoning might lead one to think that mother's milk is the perfect food for adults, but that is not the case.